Spot colors are a specific important color, such as those in corporate logos. These colors are generally defined by a color characterization value such as L*a*b* value. One can specify these colors on a printer using a profile described by the International Color Consortium (ICC) specification. However, ink profiles are optimized for smooth rendering of images, thus recipes may contain more inks than are required for matching a spot color. Recipes with fewer inks are less prone to color variation as a result of system and image noise than are recipes with a greater number of inks.